Should You Be Paid If You Work Through Your Breakss?

By
Buckley Beal LLP
|September 14, 2013

Do you routinely have to work through your breaks? If you are not paid
for time worked through breaks you may be entitled to back pay under the
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA requires that all non-exempt
workers be paid overtime at a rate of one and one-half times their regular
rate of pay for all time spent working in excess of forty hours in any
one work week. If you routinely work through breaks, your lunchtime or
any other time that exceeds your regularly scheduled shifts, you may be
entitled to back wages. If you have questions concerning what wages you
may be entitled to, it’s a good idea to consult with a top
Atlanta overtime pay attorney right away.

In a recent case,
Manning et al. v. Boston Medical Center Corporation et al., 1st Cir., Nos. 12-1573 & 12-1653 (8/1/2013), a group of hospital
workers claimed they routinely worked through breaks and outside of their
scheduled shifts without pay. According to reports, three registered nurses
and an administrative assistant who worked for Boston Medical Center (BMC)
recent filed a lawsuit asserting that BMC “deliberately used a “combination
of unlawful pay practices and timekeeping policies” to deprive them
of pay, including a timekeeping system that automatically deducts pay
for breaks.

The hospital workers also asserted that BMC failed to pay them for mandatory
training sessions and prevented them from them from recording time worked
beyond their shifts. More than 4000 employees are involved in this lawsuit,
and are seeking class certification. Although the lower court stated that
a lack of evidence supported the employees claims, the 1st Circuit Court
of Appeals overturned the dismissal noting that “because the employees’
assigned tasks often need to be completed by certain times, and because
of understaffing and lack of relief during meal and work breaks,”
BMC employees frequently worked beyond their scheduled shifts.

Further, the work was required by BMC and “was performed in the
open.” Additionally, more than once, employees “questioned
BMC managers about the practice of deducting time automatically from employees’
paychecks.” The BMC “scheduled [training sessions] during
regular work hours and led the required sessions, demonstrating that they
knew that the trainings were taking place.” Because BMC “did
nothing to account for the extra time worked,” the wage and hour
lawsuit was allowed to continue.

The workers were also allowed to maintain a claim against BMC’s former
president and CEO, finding that she had sufficient control over working
conditions to establish individual liability.

For more information about the FLSA or if you believe that you have been
required to work extra hours without pay or have not been fairly compensated
for all your work, please contact the dedicated
Georgia wage and hour attorneys The Buckley Law Firm, LLC right away.

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